Since the early 1990s, the term white paper has been applied to documents used as B2B marketing or sales tools.

Far more commercial white papers are now produced for B2B vendors than political white papers for governments.

Many B2B white papers argue that one particular technology, product or method is superior for solving a specific business problem.

B2B white papers are marketing communications documents designed to promote the products or services from a specific company.

While some list dozens of different types of B2B white papers, there are essentially three main types:

White papers are used in two main spheres: government and B2B marketing.

* Business-to-business – Business-to-business (" B2B ") sales are much more relationship-based owing to the lack of emotional attachment to the products in question.

Finding the right respondents is crucial in B2B research since they are often busy, and may not want to participate.

There are four key factors that make B2B market research special and different to consumer markets:

* B2B products and their applications are more complex than consumer products

* B2B marketers address a much smaller number of customers who are very much larger in their consumption of products than is the case in consumer markets

* Personal relationships are of critical importance in B2B markets.

Incident alerts are also common, and staff communications are also another use for B2B scenarios.

Traditionally, most VANs primarily only supported general-purpose B2B integration capabilities focused on EDI but service providers are evolving to become more process-and industry-specific over time, particularly in industries such as retail and hi-tech manufacturing.

Increasingly, online interactions with customers are providing B2B marketers with a lower cost source of customer information.

Because of the complexities of B2B marketing and the intricacies of corporate operations, the demands placed on any marketing organization to formulate the business process by which such a sophisticated series of procedures may be brought into existence are significant.

Many professional institutions and the trade publications focus much more on B2C than B2B, although most sales and marketing personnel are in the B2B sector.

The terms B2B and B2C are short forms for Business-to-Business ( B2B ) and Business-to-Consumer ( B2C ).

While B2B products and services are sold from one company to another, B2C products are sold from a company to the end user.

Most B2B products are purchased by companies to be used in their own manufacturing, producing goods and services to be sold on.

In B2B there are usually committees of people in an organization and each of the members may have different attitudes towards any brand.

* Since there are more people involved in the decision making process and technical details may have to be discussed in length, the decision-making process for B2B products is usually much longer than in B2C.

Business-to-government ( B2G ) is a derivative of B2B marketing and often referred to as a market definition of " public sector marketing " which encompasses marketing products and services to various government levels-including federal, state and local-through integrated marketing communications techniques such as strategic public relations, branding, marcom, advertising, and web-based communications.

It is used in a range of internal enterprise, B2B, and B2C applications.

The concept of matchmaking is also used in the business world and known as B2B Matchmaking, Investor Matchmaking, Business Speed Dating or Brokerage Events.

For B2B segmentation firmographics is commonly used.

In the absence of state-operated telecommunication sector, " Value-added Network Service " still is used, mainly as a functional description, in conjunction with dedicated leased lines for B2B communications ( especially for EDIFACT data transfer ).

As an XML document standard, xCBL is used primarily in B2B procurement tools for buyers, order and invoice management tools for suppliers and document routing tools for public and private marketplaces.

B2B ( Business to Business ) Branding is a term used in marketing.

B2B is also used in the context of communication and collaboration.

While almost any B2C product or service could also be a B2B product, very few B2B products or services will be used by consumers.

SIMS also links with Capita One ( through a process called B2B ), which is a database used within Local Education Authorities for general analysis and overview of pupil and school data.

Samsung Print was established in 2009 as a separate entity to focus on B2B sales and has released a broad range of multifunctional devices and printers and more.

* Decision making unit, in business-to-business sales and marketing ( B2B & B2C )

Rautakesko manages and develops the K-rauta, Rautia, K-maatalous, Byggmakker, Senukai and OMA retail chains and B2B sales in its operating area.

Trade credit is the largest use of capital for a majority of business to business ( B2B ) sellers in the United States and is a critical source of capital for a majority of all businesses.

UKBG is a wholly owned subsidiary of PCCW and it combines the role of being PCCW's 4G wireless technology centre with building a wireless services, and wholesale data capacity business in the UK focused on B2B and B2G customers, in particular the public sector and businesses looking for wireless data solutions for their needs in CCTV, mobile working, education, healthcare, disciplined services, transport, data offload, wireless Ethernet and resilient connectivity.

Business to business ( B2B ) research is inevitably more complicated than consumer research.

Services marketing typically refers to both business to consumer ( B2C ) and business to business ( B2B ) services, and includes marketing of services like telecommunications services, financial services, all types of hospitality services, car rental services, air travel, health care services and professional services.

This division publishes and prints out of its headquarters at Nariman Point in Mumbai a series of B2B magazines such as Express Computer, Express TravelWorld ( formerly called Travel and Tourism ), Express Pharma ( formerly Express Pharma Pulse ), Express Hospitality ( formerly Express Hotelier & Caterer ), the IT-focused Network Magazine, CIO Decisions, Express Healthcare Management and the newly launched business magazine Express Channel Business.

* CosmoOne ( 61. 7 %): B2B ( Business to business ) electronic commerce applications and services – the largest provider in Greece.

It also has a specialist arm, which publishes both commercial and business to business ( B2B ) titles, such as Insurance Times, The Strad, and Boxing News.

In its 2007-2008 fiscal year, acquisitions included B2B media company Randall-Reilly in the US, Asiakastieto, a Finnish credit information business and CEME, and Italian manufacturer of fluid control components.

webMethods is an enterprise software company, acquired by Software AG, focused on application integration, business process integration and B2B partner integration.

When a business buys from another business it is called business-to-business ( B2B ) online shopping.

RosettaNet is a non-profit consortium aimed at establishing standard processes for the sharing of business information ( B2B ).

This led to the creation of xCBL 2. 0 which covered 12 different business document specifications, mainly meant for electronic document communication in business-to-business ( B2B ) procurement over the Internet.

Admiral Online does not service the consumer market, concentrating only on the B2B midsize to large business market.

Solutions can provide intranet services to employees ( B2E ), and can also include enterprise portals for business-to-business ( B2B ), business-to-government ( B2G ), government-to-business ( G2B ), or other business relationships.

B2B brands avoid mass market broadcasts and generally use media that can be targeted at a specific business audience, such as direct marketing both on and offline.

Internext-Expo is a biannual adult industry networking event B2B and convention for the adult Internet industry professionals and those who work within the Adult Digital Media and Webmaster Marketplace to connect and do business with others in the industry.